BBC falls in U.K. brand rankings

Apparently Santa did not have any presents in his sack for the British Broadcasting Corporation this holiday.

The BBC joined Google, Apple and Amazon as big media and Internet brands who saw their reputations fall in Britain this year, according to YouGov's BrandIndex - an annual brand ranking.

The biggest black eye was obviously the Jimmy Savile sexual abuse scandal, as well as 'Newsnight' reporting incorrectly that a politician was part of a seperate abuse case. The payment given to George Entwistle certainly did not help, either.

The new was not all terrible for the BBC, however, as its iPlayer (a digital TV catch-up tool) topped the list of brands with the biggest positive buzz in 2012. It scored a 30 on the scale, whcih calculates the percentage balance of people saying positive things against people saying bad things.

"While the BBC umbrella brand is definitely being hit and is at the lowest levels ever seen, there has been no knock-on effect for products like the iPlayer and its .co.uk web site," which ranks 8th on the list," said BrandIndex director Sarah Murphy.

As part of the survey, the research firm polled 2,000 people daily about the positive and negative things they had heard about different brands.